


Painted Ladies

by dashakay



Series: Jitterbug Perfume [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:44:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4617081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dark I unwrap my gift and inside is Dana. She turns her head and gives me a slow, shy smile.  I didn't fall in love with her that night, but I fell just the same.  In some ways, I'm still falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painted Ladies

It's two in the morning, I think.  I'm not sure because I'm afraid to open my eyes and look at the digital clock on the wall.  Even though I'm weary to the bone, I can't sleep.  If I fall asleep, my pager will go off or a nurse will poke her head in the call room and say, "Dr. Cheng, we need you."  Tommy Jackson's fever will be spiking or there will be a code.  I know this from experience. But I need to sleep.  If I don't get at least a catnap, my brain won't be able to function enough to get through the full thirty-six hours.  A tired resident makes mistakes and I can't afford a mistake.  I'm wired on endless cups of green tea and the adrenaline from running around Pediatrics managing one crisis after another.  

My brain keeps flickering with medical terms, the generic names for medications and useless trivia on patients. Natalie Peterson is six years old and wants to be an astronaut when she grows up.  Tranh Nguyen is wearing a jaunty red knitted cap to cover his chemo-bald head.  Henry Kessler has been crying for his mother all night. 

All I want is for the voices in my head to shut up enough so that I can sink into sleep. 

Usually I can manage it, but tonight for some reason it's difficult. 

Sleep, sleep, I tell myself, picturing my grandmother rocking me as a little girl during rainstorms.  "Sleep,

Mei-Mei," she'd say to me in a singsong and I always drifted off in her strong, soft arms. 

Shut up, voices. 

It's not that I'm complaining.  This is the life I chose.  I wanted to be a doctor since I was six years old and I cut open an earthworm in the backyard to see what was inside.  I studied night and day in college and med school for this.  This is what I want to do, and nothing makes me feel more complete.  I'd just like to sleep for a while. 

I roll onto my stomach and fold the pillow under my cheek.  The sheets smell like hospital, unlike my sheets at home, which always smell of warm flannel and my vanilla candles. 

With a deep breath, I think of something that isn't remotely related to this hospital, or sick children, or twenty years of school and student loans. 

I think of her. 

It makes me smile in the dark to remember her.  Even though it was almost four months ago, I can remember every detail as if it were saved to video for posterity.  I spent less than twelve hours with Dana, but I'll never forget. 

These days I don't really have the opportunity to make a connection with anyone new.  My life is work, study, sleep, eat, work and work some more.  Sleep is what I do for fun.  It's my hobby.  I hadn't made love with anyone for six months before Dana.  So I have to cherish those rare times when I can be touched and touch.  I have to put them in little boxes, gift-wrap them in festive paper and save them to be opened at times when I really need them, when I need to be reminded that I'm not just Dr. Cheng, pediatrics resident, that I'm attractive, lovable, sexual.  I so often forget. 

In the dark I unwrap my gift and inside is Dana. 

She turns her head and gives me a slow, shy smile.  

I didn't fall in love with her that night, but I fell just the same.  In some ways, I'm still falling. 

It feels good to be suspended in the air like this.

* 

Seventy-two hours.  I kept repeating it in my head as I changed into my street clothes and left the hospital.  Seventy-two hours, seventy-two hours free to catch up on sleep, to clean my apartment, to maybe cook some soup and play with Miu Miu.  

I was so tired I felt like I was high on barbiturates but instead of hopping on the bus, I chose to walk the mile and a half home from the hospital.  I needed the time to decompress from thirty-six straight hours before I could sleep.  I needed to readjust to the outside world.  Even though Pediatrics has lots of windows, I tend to ignore their presence.  I don't need a reminder of the outside world. 

It was a rainy morning, my favorite kind in the world, which is a good thing if you live in San Francisco.  I opened my red umbrella and stepped out onto the crowded street, taking a deep breath of the mineral scent of rain on pavement.  It was exhilarating to feel the rain on my cheeks as I climbed the steep hill home. 

As soon as I walked in my apartment, I kissed Miu Miu and crashed on the couch, listening to the rain beat of the windowpanes. 

When I woke it was dark in the apartment and I felt out of time and had a crick in my back.  I got up with a groan, which sent the cat flying off the couch, yowling petulantly at me.  I stumbled into the bathroom, checking the clock in the bedroom on the way.  It was seven at night, which meant that I'd slept for almost eight hours.  I'd needed it. 

Finally clean of the assorted sweat and muck working with children for a day and half will coat on a person's body, I wandered into the kitchen in my bathrobe and slammed most of a bottle of water while checking my messages.  My mother, nagging me to come to Sunday dinner.  The dentist's office.  My mother, nagging me again to come to Sunday dinner.  The vet's office.  My mother, going for a record-breaking third nag about Sunday dinner. 

Such a popular girl I was. 

The last message was from my friend Alice.  "May, honey, didn't you say you'd be off tonight?  Come meet me for a drink at Belladonna.  I haven't seen you in so long and we have tons to catch up on.  Do I have to beg?" 

No, she didn't.  I called her back and we arranged to meet at nine. 

Even though Belladonna is less than three blocks from my apartment, I hadn't been there in almost a year.  That's what kind of social life a resident has.  I got a little too excited for my own good at the idea of wearing something other than scrubs or sweats and having a glass of wine and some gossip with a good friend. 

I probably tried on every outfit in my closet, pathetic beast that I was.  I blasted Massive Attack on the stereo, hoping to hell it wasn't bothering Mrs. DiAngelo upstairs.  It took nearly an hour to pick out something to wear, although I took a break to make a sandwich and let the cat do some gymnastics with a piece of colorful fleece on a stick. 

The irony of the fact that while at the hospital I can make split-second judgement calls that affect a patient's life but it took me forever to decide on a pair of shoes, did not escape me. 

At a quarter of nine I walked out of the house wearing my leather coat, a little red t-shirt and a long, tight black skirt. My face felt strange with makeup on, but I was bound and determined to go for my best femme goddess look that night.  Usually the most I managed to get on my face before trudging off to work was some cherry-flavored Chapstick.  But tonight was all about shiny red lipstick. 

It wasn't like I was expecting to meet anyone that night.  It was just Alice and I've known her since college.  It was a matter of pride, though.  I sometimes forgot I was a woman. 

It was still raining a bit when I stepped outside, but almost as soon as I unfurled my umbrella, it ended.  I sighed happily as I tapped down the street. 

On my way to the bar, I thought about how some cities have a masculine character and some feminine.  I think that's why I never truly warmed up to Chicago.  It was a big, brusque, masculine city.  San Francisco is softer, more accommodating.  No wonder so many GLBT people live here.  I smiled at my own twisted logic, which sounded like something one of my stoned floor mates in college would have said.  "So like, dude, San Francisco is, like, a feminine city, you know? Man, like it just has a womanly vibe…" 

The light is soft and pink in Belladonna.  When I had more time, the year I took off between med school and residency to work at the Chinese-American Women and Children's Clinic, I came here all the time.  There was a little group of about eight of us who would gather in different permutations.  We'd order a few bottles of wine and some crostini and get mildly smashed as we bitched about the women who had done us wrong and why girlie girls got no respect in the lesbian scene.  Sometimes, on the weekends, we'd end up at a dance club, writhing in the strobe lights to harsh music.  I was seeing Jaye then and we'd hide out in the corners and kiss with mouths that tasted of vodka-cranberries.  There was more than one time that we'd stumble home just as it was getting light and not even make it to the bedroom; we'd end up fucking on the couch or on the rug or, on one memorable occasion, the kitchen table. 

Now I scanned the crowd and didn't recognize a single face sitting at the small tables.  Women were laughing and sharing secrets, lighting cigarettes and sipping wine, but I didn't know any of them.  I did recognize Lee, the bartender, though.  She raised her hand in a greeting and waved me over.  "Where the hell you been, Cheng?" 

I smiled and shrugged.  "At the hospital, Lee.  Can you get me a glass of wine?" 

"I got a good Sauvignon Blanc for you, honey."  She pulled the cork out of a green bottle and poured me a glass.  "Hey, your friend Alice called.  She can't make it." 

In the mirror behind the bar I could see the disappointment on my face.  "You're kidding." 

"Nope.  Her car won't start. She said she tried your cell but it went right to voicemail." 

Since Alice lived way the hell out in Benicia, there was no way she could just hop in a cab.  Damn. 

"The wine's on me, May," Lee said, patting my hand.  "It's just good to see your beautiful face in here." 

I thanked her and we chatted for a while, until she got busy with a rush of drink orders.

Sipping my wine, I wandered into the sea of tables, deciding I might as well stay to finish my drink before I went home to lie on the couch and watch movies before falling asleep again. 

I was about to sit down at the one empty table when I heard someone coughing in that way that told me she wasn't used to drinking a shot.  Without even thinking about it, I grabbed a napkin off a table and handed it to her. 

"Thanks," she said, wiping her lips off. 

"Drink much tequila?" I said with a smile, turning around a bit so I could get a better look at her. 

I liked what I saw.  She was small and slender, probably my height, wearing a blue-gray sweater, jeans and a pair of black boots.  Her hair was a true red, not from a bottle, and wavy. Her eyes looked blue, although it was hard to tell in the dim, rosy light of the bar.  She looked like she was about my age, maybe a few years older.  Pretty, but not in that knockout way.  Her looks were the kind that would sneak up on you later, when you'd roll over in bed and think, holy shit, this woman is gorgeous. 

She shrugged.  "It's been a while." 

This was the part where I really should have smiled and nodded and gone off to drink my wine, but I was so desperate for someone to talk to that I stuck out my hand and said, "My name's May." 

Her hand was warm and soft as she clasped my fingers for a handshake.  "I'm Dana," she said in a soft, low voice.  She blinked and hesitated for a moment and then said, "Do you want to sit down?" 

I joined her at the table.  She looked nervous for some reason but her smile was irresistible, shy and sweet.  Maybe it was the lighting, but she had dark shadows under her eyes, as if she'd got as little sleep lately as I had. 

"I don't make a habit of talking to strangers in bars," Dana said.  "But since I don't live in San Francisco, everyone's a stranger, so I suppose I have to break my own rule if I want to talk to anyone." 

"Where are you from?" 

"Washington, D.C.  I'm out here for a conference, but I fly home tomorrow morning." 

"Oh yeah?  What kind of conference?"  I tried to guess, since I'm good at that.  People watching is my specialty.  When I was a kid, I used to spend Saturdays with my grandmother.  I'd help her do her weekly shopping in Chinatown and then she'd take me to North Beach for a pastry at an Italian cafe.  We'd sit at a sidewalk table if the weather was nice and tell each other stories about the people that passed us.  Dana looked like she was maybe in software or teaching.  She wasn't slick enough for sales or marketing. 

"Forensic pathology," she said. 

My eyebrows rose. 

"You know, like Quincy.” She sipped her beer chaser. 

"I know," I said with a grin.  "I'm a doctor, too.  Third-year pediatrics resident." 

"Aha," she said.  "I remember that all too well." 

And then the conversation just began to flow.  The waitress came by and we ordered another round, barely stopping our talk.  We shared stories about missed sleep, aching feet and a complete and utter lack of social life.  It turned out that we even had a friend in common.  Her med school friend, Mike Hudson, was now a fellow in OB-GYN at my hospital. 

As I talked to her, I wondered if she was straight.  Granted, we were in a lesbian bar, but something about her said straight girl to me.  I can't tell you why, she just seemed that way.  I have a finely honed gaydar, although it hasn't stopped me from a string of affairs with confused straight girls. 

The longer I sat next to her at the table and the more I smelled her vanilla and sandalwood perfume and watched her fine white skin get pinker from drinking, the more I began to want her.  I wondered what would happen if I were to make a move.  I've never been good at that, especially then, when I was so sadly out of practice. 

"This is a nice place," she said, glancing around.  Next to us, two women were lightly kissing over a plate of artichoke dip.  "I'm glad I came tonight." 

"How did you end up here?" 

"I don't know.  I was walking for hours and my feet hurt, so I just sort of stumbled in here.  I liked the name." 

"It means beautiful woman in Italian," I said in a half-whisper.  My shoe had slid off my foot and as if my foot had a mind of its own, it began sliding up her calf.  I waited for her to flash me a disgusted look but she just looked at me through her thick lashes. 

Then she surprised the hell out me.  Dana's hand found mine under the table and squeezed.  "You're awfully beautiful," she said. 

The flush spread across my face in record time.  When was the last time anyone had called me beautiful, not counting Lee the bartender?  I was raised to believe that beautiful was a six-foot-tall California blonde with a tan, not a short, stumpy-legged Chinese girl with a crooked front tooth and unruly hair, so even when someone did happen to call me beautiful, I had a hard time believing it.  But somehow, I believed Dana.  She didn't seem calculating enough to lie. 

She leaned into me and her dark pink lips grazed mine.  What are you doing, I thought, but then her mouth pressed into mine harder and I found myself opening to her, venturing to touch her tongue with my own.  She tasted sweet, like beer and lime.  My hand stroked her cheek and it was so soft, like baby skin. 

I'd forgotten how it felt to want.  To need to be connected, to get wet from just one kiss. 

Her smile as we pulled apart was self-conscious.  "I'm sorry," she said, her hands shaking on the table.  "I don't know what got into me." 

"I'm not sorry," I said and kissed her again, long and slow. 

People were staring at us now.  I could feel their eyes on us.  "Maybe, we should get out of here," I offered. 

The look on her face was astonished and I was pretty sure she'd never kissed a woman before.  I wondered what had made her do it.  Perhaps she felt safer out of town. 

"Or not," I added. 

She shook her bobbed head.  "No.  Let's leave." 

As we stood, she said, in a halting voice, "May—I've never—" 

I didn't let her finish.  "I know.  Don't worry about it." 

I took her by the hand and led her out the door. 

* 

Outside it had begun to rain again.  It wasn't exactly rain but an oddly beautiful mist falling from the sky, that made a glow around the streetlights. Almost as much as I love a rainy day, I love the look of the streetlights reflecting on the puddles.  San Francisco is a city made for rain.  Some cities look dingy and depressing when under rain clouds, but this city shines like a patrician jewel even under heavy rain.  I missed nights like this when I was in med school at Northwestern.  

Dana lifted up her face to the stars and smiled.  "This is a wonderful city." 

"I wouldn't live anywhere else," I said and opened my umbrella.  I motioned her to join me underneath the red plastic.  "Come on, you don't want to get wet." 

We began making our way down the street, passing other bars, boutiques, restaurants still jammed with people.  "Where are we going?" I asked her. 

She turned her face to mine.  "I assumed we were going to your place," she said, her cheeks pink. 

I stopped and touched her arm.  "Are you okay with this, Dana?" 

"I think so."  She bit her lip.  "I've never done this before.  Never with a woman or a man.  I just don't go home with people I've met in bars."  Dana laughed a little.  "Come to think of it, I don't go to bars in general." 

"I don't exactly do bar pickups, either, in case you were wondering.  I don't have the time or the inclination." 

We began walking again, crossing the street and turning left towards my apartment building.  "Why me, then?" she asked. 

"Maybe I should be asking you that," I said.  "Why are _you_ doing this?" 

Her look was direct, blue eyes boring straight into mine.  "I don't know.”  

We walked up to the third floor and I unlocked the door and switched the lights on.  Dana walked a few steps inside and looked around.  My apartment is small and cluttered, but clean.  I have this weird thing when I can't sleep, where I go around with a pail full of Mr. Clean and start scrubbing things down.  That night it was in decent shape, for once, most of the books put away in the bookcases and all the assorted glasses and plates in the kitchen sink instead of scattered on the coffee table. 

I dropped my keys on the end table and shrugged out of my leather coat. Miu Miu came over for her dose of adulation and then went over to Dana to give her a speculative sniff. 

"Your cat is gorgeous," she said, stroking her black fur. 

"Thanks.  Her name is Miu Miu." 

Dana laughed.  "You named your cat after Prada's secondary line?" 

A fashion lover after my own heart.  Not many people I knew got the name.  "Well, that and how it sounds like a cat name and it also sounds like a Chinese name. My family nickname is 'Mei-Mei,' which means 'little sister.'" 

She wandered over to the windows and stared out at the view of the street below and a row of nearly identical apartment buildings across the street. 

"Can I get you a glass of wine?" I asked, wondering where to begin.  I seemed to have lost all my cool during my protracted period of celibacy. 

She nodded. 

When I returned with a glass of Riesling for each of us, she was still standing at the window, seemingly lost in thought.  I touched her shoulder and she jumped a little. 

"Are you okay?" I handed her a glass. 

She nodded.  "I'm sorry," she said, "I must seem like a real mess to you." 

I could feel my eyebrows knit together.  "You seem just fine.  Do you _feel_ like a mess?" 

We wandered over to the couch.  I picked up the remote and turned the stereo to the local jazz station.  They were playing Duke Ellington. 

"Things have been…” she started to say and paused for some wine.  "I can't even explain it to you, May.  You wouldn't understand."  

I snorted.  "Fight with the boyfriend?" 

The look Dana gave me was withering.  "There is no man in my life right now.  It's other things.  It's just been stressful lately.  I didn't tell you this at the bar, but I'm an FBI agent." 

Just like Dana back at Belladonna, I began to choke on my drink.  She patted my back and grinned.  "Did I throw you for a loop, May?" 

"You don't seem like an FBI agent." 

Her eyebrow rose.  "Why?  Just because I'm not a big, butch woman with comfortable shoes and no-nonsense hair?" 

"Sorry, didn't mean to stereotype.  Although I'm actually glad you're not a big, butch woman." 

"Why?  Not your type?" 

I shook my head. "Not usually." 

"What is your type?" 

I couldn't tell her that I had a strange fascination with ostensibly straight women.  My nickname in college was TD—"The Despoiler," since I’d had a string of flings with girls who had just broken up with their boyfriends. I'm sure there's some deep, psychoanalytical reason why I'm attracted to them, but I haven't yet been in the mood to plumb those depths of my soul.  I do know that I like very feminine woman.  I want to kiss lips coated in slick lipstick.  When I take a shirt off, I want the bra and panties to be lacy and silky.  I want curves, perfume and painted fingernails.  Unfortunately, those women can be hard to find. 

And there's nothing like the expression on the face of a woman who has never before kissed another woman, after she's received her first kiss.  It's a heady mix of wonder, confusion, arousal and shame.  It gets me wet. 

It made me want to kiss Dana again. 

"You're my type," I say.  "Strong, smart, and gorgeous.  Feminine but not too girlie-girl." 

She looked down at her hands.  "You're sweet to say those things." 

"You don't believe them?"  But I knew too well what it was like to not believe compliments. 

Her smile was sad.  "May, I don't know what I believe anymore." 

While we probably could have spent the rest of the night discussing just why she was so unsure of her beliefs, I knew time was short.  Come morning, Dana would be on a plane across the country.  And I wanted her so much it was beginning to ache. 

I touched her cheek.  "Let me help you," I whispered.  "Let me make you feel good." 

Dana blinked several times and appeared to be thinking.  "I want to kiss you," she whispered after a long pause.  "But I'm scared." 

I pushed a lock of her red hair behind her ear.  She had lovely little ears, pink and crowned with small pearl studs.  "I'm not going to bite." 

A glimmer of a smile flickered over her lips. 

"Unless you ask me to," I added and nuzzled her neck with my nose, getting a closer whiff of the warm scent of her perfume. 

"I'm not scared of being with you because you're a woman, May.  If anything, I find that reassuring.  I'm scared that I'll disappoint you." 

"How could you disappoint me?" 

Turning to me, she said, "I'm not any good at this."  Her hands came together and apart in a bewildered gesture.  "I'm not a very good lover." 

I had to fight to keep my eyes from rolling.  "Oh yeah, who says?" 

"I haven't been with anyone in a long time.  More than three years, actually.  It's mostly because my work is my life.  I have no energy to give to that part of myself." 

Picturing my next thirty-six hour stint, I smiled in recognition. 

Dana went on, "But it's more than that.  I'm just not successful at relationships, at sex.  I don't know why, but I'm not."  She looked at me again and her face colored.  "I can't believe I'm telling you all this.  I mean, we just met an hour or so ago." 

"Sometimes it's easier to talk to someone who isn't so close to the situation."  That's how I used to be with Lee, the bartender, as cliched as it sounds.  I could sit up at the bar and spill all my girl troubles and she'd make things seem so clear with just a few words of advice. 

She nodded.  "Maybe.  I'm sorry for spilling all my troubles.  I feel apprehensive about this.  I don't know where to start." 

"First of all, we don't have to do anything tonight," I said, while secretly thinking that I had to have her in the next minute or die.  "But if you want to, all you have to do to start is kiss me." 

The air seemed to actually thicken, to have a palpable mass as she looked at me with those big blue-gray eyes and her full lips began to part in a smile.  Come on, come on, I silently urged. 

I have no idea why I wanted her so much.  Maybe it was because it had been so damn long for me.  Maybe it was because Dana was so gorgeous.  Or maybe it was just one of those freaks of chemistry.  From the minute I sat down next to her at Belladonna, I'd wanted her. 

Her smile grew wider and no longer shy, and she leaned into me and touched my face.  "This is so weird," she whispered.  "I've never looked at a woman and wanted her before." 

Just those small words and I was wet and ready for her. 

"It's okay to want me," I said.  "I'm not planning on telling your mother." 

She kissed me then, long and hard, plunging her tongue into my mouth, teasing me with it, sucking on my lips, mingling what was left of my lipstick with what was left of hers.  Her lipstick tasted slightly of black currants.  I groaned into her mouth with happiness and arousal.  Not a good lover my left butt cheek, I thought.  Any woman who could kiss like that had to be a rare talent in bed. 

I felt drunk with my power.  I'd show her.  I'd show her how good she could be at making love. 

Dana crawled on top of me, straddling my lap and still kissing me hard, her hands in my hair, ruffling the short strands.  I couldn't breathe, couldn't catch up with my rapidly beating heart, but I didn't care.  What's a little respiration when a gorgeous redhead is sucking the life out of your lips and sliding her own mouth down to suck at your neck? 

She pulled away and gave me a lopsided smile.  What a mouth on her.  "You're beautiful," she said.  

I grinned at that.  "Kiss me again," I said. 

We kissed for what felt like days and weeks, like Jamie and I used to kiss when we were babysitting together in high school and the kids were asleep and the parents not expected back for hours.  Jamie and I never got caught and were known throughout the neighborhood as the best damn babysitters in town.  Little did the parents know that sometimes we'd make love in their beds.  This felt wild and forbidden like those days, although I'm not sure why.  

My hands reached up to touch her breasts through her sweater and she jerked away, just a little.  "Is this okay?" I whispered. 

She tipped her head back a little and let out her breath.  "Oh, yeah." 

Her breasts were small, but round and firm under her bra.  I like smaller breasts because I'm small myself, and don't like to feel outclassed.  Dana's were a perfect handful each and I cupped and stroked them as she licked the outline of my ear. 

"You like that?" I asked. 

Her muffled grunt was enough of an answer for me. 

I was so wet I could practically feel the juices coming through my skirt.  Dana's hand drifted down to my chest and began to shyly touch my breasts.  I wasn't wearing a bra that night.  I'm so flat chested there's really no need to wear one unless I'm wearing something really clinging.  A small cry left my mouth as she began to trace my left nipple with her fingertips, so slowly and tentatively it almost hurt. 

"Oh, the things I'm going to do to you," I whispered and she looked at me with deer-in-the-headlights eyes. 

My hands began to pull her sweater off and she nodded at me as if to say it was okay.  I smiled in appreciation at the sight of her breasts encased in a modest white lace bra.  It had a front clasp and I pried it open and drew the lace off her body.  She had a lovely little body, a perfectly curved hourglass.  I'm shaped more like a boy, despite my femme tendencies.  I don't have hips to speak of, sadly. Dana was slender but lush and round at the same time. 

With a maneuver that would have made my college self-defense instructor proud I managed to flip her off my lap and onto the couch on her back.  Dana gazed up at me with a look that said she could have defended herself if she'd wanted to, but she hadn't wanted to.  I bent my head to her to take each of her sweet, hard nipples in my mouth and suck on them in turns.  Her hands stroked my shoulders as I sucked her breasts and her breath came out in little pants.  One of Dana's legs rose to lock itself around my back and she actually started grinding her pelvis into me.  This was going to be so good. 

I lifted my head from her breasts and she made a "don't stop" noise.  

"This couch is kind of cramped," I said.  "I have a nice big bed if you'd like to go there." 

She sat up and blew some strands of hair out of her face.  "So, this is real," she said. 

"It's real."  I offered her a hand to help her up from the couch. 

* 

In silence, we walked the few short steps to my bedroom.  Thank God I'd cleaned up a bit before I'd left the house or she'd probably have run and fled from the sight of medical journals and dyke erotica 'zines scattered all over the place, mingling with cat toys and dirty underpants.  Now the bedroom was neat and ordered and even cozy looking with just the bedside lamp on and Miu Miu curled up on the end of the bed.  I picked the cat up and tossed her out of the room, shutting the door on her outraged meow. 

Dana stood in the middle of the room as if unsure of what to do.  I wasn't too sure either, so I just walked up to her and kissed her again, my fingers running all over the smooth skin of her back. 

"This is unfair," she said, and began to pull off my t-shirt. 

Oh, skin against skin.  It felt so good, so new.  

Dana pulled away and bent to pull off her black boots and socks.  I did the same with my own shoes.  Her fingers went to the fly of her jeans.  "Do you want me to take them off?" she said. 

What a stupid question.  I stepped back to watch her slender white legs and pale pink panties emerge from the jeans.  It was all I could do not to tackle her onto the bed and spread those pretty legs apart. 

I wiggled out of my skirt and stood in front of her, hoping she wouldn't be disgusted by my skinny body.  It was times like these that I hated being a woman, hated having to feel so conscious of the flaws of my body.  I was acutely aware that I hadn't shaved my legs in about five days out of sheer laziness. But Dana only smiled and stepped closer to stroke my breasts with her soft hands. 

I tugged her by the hand to the bed and turned down the sheets.  Sitting against the wooden headboard, I spread my legs into a vee and motioned for her to sit between them.  "What are you planning?" she said with a suspicious look. 

"Don't you trust me?" I said. 

Good question, really.  How much can you trust someone you just met in a bar? 

Trust me anyhow, I thought.  I won't hurt you. 

Dana raised her eyebrows at me and sat between my legs, her back against my chest.  

"All I want is to give you pleasure," I said into her sweet-smelling hair.  "Just for one night.  I need it and you need it."  I began to run my palms up and down her smooth legs. 

She leaned back a bit, relaxing.  "I want that," she whispered.  "I haven't had that in so long." 

Her head rose and a small gasp came from her.  I looked up and saw that she'd noticed that sitting where we were on my bed she could see the two of us in the mirror over the dressing table. 

It was a pretty sight, the two of us together—my dark gold legs on the outside and her pale white limbs on the inside, her auburn hair spilling over my shoulder. 

I pointed at the mirror.  "Do you like what you see?" 

She nodded. 

I began to touch her then, one hand lightly kneading and cupping her breasts and one sliding between her thighs to stroke the thin, silky material of her panties. 

"Keep watching," I said.  "I want you to see how good you can feel." 

"We're beautiful together, May," Dana said with a beatific smile.  And we were that night.  We were gorgeous, worthy of art. 

"Tell me how to touch you," I asked her.  "I want to know how to make you come." 

The look on her reflection's face was slightly alarmed. 

"I…I don't know," she said. 

"Sure you do.  How do you touch yourself when you're alone, when you want to feel pleasure?" 

"I'm not used to talking about that, May." 

"You can't get what you want until you ask for it."  Her breasts were ecoming heavier in my hands, swelling and filling with her arousal, the nipples turning a darker rose and hardening as I kept circling them with my fingers.  

Just like riding a bike, I dizzily thought, you never really forget.  It all comes back when you need it. 

Her hand moved down to join mine between her thighs.  "I don't know if I can tell you but I can show you." 

"Show me." 

She shifted her bottom up a little and I helped her off with her panties, which went sailing over the edge of the mattress to the wood floor below.  I watched in the mirror as her hand and mine delved into the coppery curls between her legs.  "I like it slow," she whispered, and our fingers dipped into her slippery flesh and then began to stroke her clit in a circular motion. 

Her head rested on my shoulder and her mouth opened.  "Like that," she groaned.  "Oh yes, May, just like that." 

I felt her lift off the bed as her hips began to rotate.  The air filled with the tangy scent of her arousal and it made my mouth water, but I had to satisfy my oral craving by kissing the silky flesh of the nape of her neck.  Dana was coming apart under my hands and it made my head spin. 

"Is this what you want?" I asked her. 

"Yes, yes, but I want more…" she moaned. 

I took that as the magic sign to slip two fingers into her tight heat.  The sound she made when I did that went straight to my bones.  

"Harder," Dana said. 

I watched in rapt fascination as I fucked her with my fingers, my thumb brushing against her clit with every pass of my hand.  I watched as her mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.  I watched the dusky flush begin to spread across the fine skin of her face and chest.  

And I heard her cry out as she began to come. 

In the mirror, she lifted her hips up and squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers scrabbling to clutch at the light blue sheets on the bed.  She looked like she was drowning and I was thrilled to be able to give that to her. 

She was still after a minute, breathing hard in my arms. 

I turned us so that we tumbled onto the bed below, lying on our sides and still wrapped in each other.  I could smell her pleasure and her sweat and I wanted always to remember her scent, to remind myself that there was one night in this part of my life when I felt like a woman, not just a doctor. 

Dana's eyes opened and she smiled.  "That was amazing, May.  Thank you." 

"Don't thank me yet," I said, pausing to kiss her again.  "We've only gotten started tonight." 

"Good," she said, "I don't want to stop." 

"So, what was that you were saying about not being good in bed?"  I lifted her hand to my lips and began kissing her fingers. 

A strange expression crossed her face.  "Well, I haven't really done anything to you, yet." 

"So, you really don't think you're a good lover?" 

Her eyes closed and for a moment I was afraid she might start crying.  "I've been told I'm cold." 

I had to snort at that.  "And you believed that?" 

"Well, you hear something like that, you tend to believe it."  She shrugged her thin shoulders. 

"Let me guess, someone told you that when you were breaking up, right?" 

Dana's eyes opened again.  "How did you know?" 

"Because I've heard that same routine.  It's bullshit.  If someone is unhappy with the way you are in bed, they should tell you about it at the time, not save it up until you break up.  By that time, the point is kind of moot, don't you think?" 

We both started laughing and it turned into an endless kiss, slippery and wet with desire. 

Dana turned me onto my back and straddled me.  "I want to make you feel good now," she said, her eyes no longer looking tired like they had back in the bar.  She looked alive, her face still flushed from her orgasm. 

I squeezed her soft ass.  "Go for it." 

She was so shy it was precious.  Dana kissed me all over, tiny birdlike kisses on my skin, little licks and nips with her tongue and teeth.  I trembled under her body, stroking her everywhere I could reach. 

Her touch became more assured as she seemed to forget to be self-conscious, as she latched her lips around one of my nipples and began to suck.  She treated each of my breasts in turn with lavish care and I felt her straddle my thigh and move up and down on it, the little devil. 

I was moaning almost constantly now, while her fingers crept down my belly and found me where I was dripping with need for her.  "Touch me," I begged. 

Dana left my breasts and kissed her way down my stomach.  I froze, considering the implications of what she seemed about to do.  Was she truly going to go down on me?  I hadn't even done it to her yet, and she'd never been with a woman before. 

I was about to find out what a brave woman Dana was.  She must be something else as a FBI agent. 

I felt her hot breath blowing across my pubic hair.  I lifted my head from the pillow.  "You don't have to do this, Dana," I said. 

Her smile was full and delicious.  "I want to, May.  Just tell me if I'm doing it wrong." 

I ran my fingers through her mussed hair.  "Just do what feels good to you when someone is going down on you." 

And so she began.  The touch of her tongue was so hesitant that at first I couldn't feel much of anything, just light kitten-laps up and down my folds. 

"A little harder," I said, encouraging her with my hands on her warm shoulders. 

If I lifted my head a bit I could still see us in the dressing table mirror, could see her shiny red hair between my legs. 

She made a muffled sound and began to circle my clit with her tongue in earnest.  "That's good," I groaned, feeling the pressure begin to rise.  "Oh, that's really nice, Dana.  But give me your fingers." 

Dana looked up at me with half-closed eyes and bent her head to me again, slipping a finger deep inside.  

I closed my eyes as she fucked me with two fingers, her mouth making slurping sounds as she ate me.  I thought about the deep blue of the Pacific, a sunny day.  I saw Dana and me lying in the sun in bikinis, hidden somewhere in a quiet cove, baking in the sun and making love in the shade of a beach umbrella.  I could hear the screech of seagulls and smell the hot sand. 

She was a little clumsy at what she was doing, but she didn't have ten plus years of experience like I did. Still, I gave her top grades for effort and enthusiasm.  For a woman who had never entertained thoughts of being with another woman, she certainly had the potential to give good head.  Cold in bed, please. 

One more deep thrust of her fingers into me and I started shaking with the roller coaster force of my climax.  I mumbled a whole load of nonsense as I was taken with the deep waves of pleasure. 

Dana peeked up at me as soon as my orgasm subsided.  "Wow," she said.

 

I pulled her up to me so that we were eye to eye.  "I can't believe you did that." 

"Didn't you like it?" she said in a smart-ass voice. 

"Of course I did, I just didn't expect that you'd want to do that, your first time in bed with a woman." 

"I don't take a lot of chances."  Dana lazily ran her hand up and down my back.  "My professional life is really…strange and difficult and often scary, but in my personal life, everything is kept on a safe, controllable level.  For one night, I wanted to try something new." 

"Did you enjoy it?" 

She nodded.  "I did.  It was different, but I liked it."  Dana leaned over and kissed my forehead.  "I like the way you taste.  It's warm and sort of sweet. I liked making you come." 

"Glad I've made a convert," I laughed. 

"I don't know about that," she said.  "I'm primarily attracted to men." 

"You can like both, you know." 

She wrapped a warm leg around my hip.  "Are you ever attracted to men?" 

"Sometimes.  I think Harrison Ford is hot." 

Dana laughed. 

I went on, "But for the most part it's women for me.  It's always been that way.  I had boyfriends in high school, but I'd fool around with my friend Jamie behind their backs.  She's now president of the Los Angeles Lesbian and Gay Coalition." 

"I can't imagine growing up gay.  It's hard enough to be a teenager.  I was the moodiest teen girl you ever saw.  A mouthful of braces and one hell of a bad attitude." 

"I'll bet you were adorable.  I would probably have followed you around, hoping you'd invite me for a sleepover," I said. 

"Maybe I wouldn't have been so moody if we'd had one of those sleepovers."  

"You know, you can stay here tonight if you'd like," I said, my heart starting to beat faster.  I just wanted to fall asleep with her near me and know that for once I wasn't sleeping all alone. 

Go ahead, call me needy.  You won't be the first. 

"I'd like to," she replied and kissed me again.  "I haven't really slept all week.  I've had too much on my mind." 

We began to kiss again and kissing led to touching and touching led to sucking and stroking and finally, finally burying my face in her wetness and tasting her juices, getting them all over my face as I made her cry out in orgasm not once but twice.  I showed her what I could do and what I could make her do.  I had her sit up against the headboard so she could watch me making love to her, so she could watch her own face as she came apart under my tongue and fingers.  And I came, too, rubbing my mound against the sheets, as she came, the two of us shuddering and moaning together. 

Sometime after we wound up going to the kitchen.  She was wearing my green silk kimono, which exposed a healthy portion of her slender legs.  I was in an old tee shirt and caught a glance of myself in the hallway mirror, my short black hair standing on end. Dana ruffled my hair and smiled.  "You look like the singer of an 80s New Wave band." 

I pinched her bottom.  "I'll take that as a compliment." 

Neither of us had eaten in a while so I heated up some spaghetti my neighbor had made for me.  Mrs. DiAngelo is afraid that I'll starve to death so she sends me care packages of pasta and rum cakes. 

I loved watching her slurping spaghetti noodles and remembering what those lips of hers had done to me in bed. 

After we'd eaten, Dana walked over to the living room windows.  She pointed to the sky.  "Look, May." 

The skies must have cleared after the rain, for I saw the biggest, brightest full moon I'd ever had the privilege to view in my life.  It made the entire neighborhood glow with a supernaturally silver light. 

"I see a lot of things in my work that I refuse to believe," she said, taking my hand, "but a moon like this makes me believe everything is possible." 

I squeezed her fingers.  "Everything is possible.  I have to believe in that." 

Dana turned to me and smiled.  "I do, too." 

We went to bed shortly after that, falling in an exhausted slumber in each other's arms.  Before I drifted off, I reminded myself to wake early enough in the morning to make love to her before she had to go. 

Just before dawn, the sound of her voice woke me.  Dana was moaning, but it wasn't a good sound.  "Put down the gun," she cried out in a voice muffled by her pillow.  "Don't do it, Muller, put the gun down, can't you see he's pushing you?" 

Who's Muller and why does he have a gun, I thought. It made no sense to me, but then, nightmares rarely do.  I touched her shoulder and kissed her head and she finally went quiet and peaceful, falling into a less disturbed place in her sleep.  I followed right behind her, to a sleep that held no dreams. 

When I did finally wake to daylight, it was ten in the morning and her side of the bed was empty.  The only sign she'd been there was the green kimono, neatly draped over the chair in the corner, and the pillow, which was still indented in the shape of her head.  But I could still smell her on my fingers and on the sheets. 

She'd left me a note on the kitchen table, thanking me for the wonderful night but explaining that she had a plane to catch.  "You looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you up," the note read. She didn’t leave a phone number or email address. 

I didn't hold it against her.  Sleep was a valuable thing. 

But I did miss her. 

* 

I must have fallen asleep even if I don't remember doing it, for the next thing I know the on-call room fills with light from the hallway and I see Kelly standing there.  "Dr. Cheng," she says softly, "You need to wake up.  Billy is spiking again." 

Just as I'd suspected. 

The clock reads 4:20, which means I slept for more than two hours.  I slept and dreamed of Dana.  I often do that here. 

With a sigh, I sit up and stretch.  In my mind, I carefully put my memories of Dana back into the box where they belong, put them away until I need them again.  There will be another long night when I won't be able to sleep, when I'll need to remember a singular, perfect night when I made love with a beautiful woman and felt nothing but pleasure and joy.  A night when we watched the full moon and then fell asleep entwined in each other. 

I stand and slip on my shoes, straighten out my rumpled scrubs.  I place Dana on the highest shelf in my mind and head out into the hallway, ready to deal with the world once more.


End file.
